


Finding the Way

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: The Outer Rim [24]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Male-Female Friendship, Religious Guilt, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:21:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28352337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: After the events of The Rescue, Din Djarin could use a friend.  Cara Dune doesn’t know what it means to be a Mandalorian, but some things are universal.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Cara Dune, Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda
Series: The Outer Rim [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2055645
Comments: 17
Kudos: 191





	Finding the Way

**Author's Note:**

> I went ahead and had to draw this story <3

She found Din Djarin alone, after the Jedi left with the child.

Cara wasn’t sure exactly when he’d slipped away from the bridge; there’d been a lot happening. Bo-Katan and Kosca had been deep in conversation about their next destination, Fennec was pinging Boba to set up a rendezvous, and she’d busied herself with gagging the unconscious Moff and stowing him away in a corner with extra restraints. The bastard had a lot to answer for.

In all that, though, she hadn’t wanted to look at the Mandalorian without his helmet. It had felt too private, too close, to watch his goodbye with the kid. Once the Jedi left, it seemed he’d taken advantage of her inattention. 

Without a ship, though, he hadn’t gone far. He’d only been missing for fifteen minutes or so when she realized and started searching for him on the security console. She gave a hasty request for the others to watch the Moff -- not as if Bo-Katan would let him try anything else -- and took the lift downstairs. 

She found him the next floor down from the bridge, inside the officers’ mess. The half-opened door was scored with blaster fire; likely Din’s work when the doors wouldn’t open for him. She peered in through the half-opened door, glancing away when she saw his mussed brown hair, a glimpse of his face. She still wasn’t used to it, and still wasn’t sure if it was okay for her to see him like this.

“It’s me,” she called, rapping on the door with her knuckles. Surprising a Mandalorian was a surefire way to an early grave. “Can I come in?”

His voice sounded strange without the mechanical filter. Human. Almost small. “Do what you want.”

That was encouraging, at least. He wasn’t kicking her out entirely. 

She entered the room, rolling her eyes at Imperial waste. Real wood paneling lined the walls, and instead of the spartan standard issue bench tables in the rank-and-file’s mess, individual tables with sleek surfaces and cushioned chairs dotted the room. Gideon himself must have taken meals here. 

Din sat at the bar at the back of the room. There was a half-drunk cup of liquor beside him, his helmet resting next to it, its visor turned away from him.. 

“So… you okay?” Cara hazarded, taking the seat beside him. It looked like he’d made a decent dent in a slim bottle of aged Corellian whiskey. Only the best for the officers, of course. This stuff went for big credits in the Core, enough so that she’d never tasted it herself.

“I’m fine.” He didn’t look at her. He just stared straight ahead at the wall, brown eyes fixed on nothing in particular. From the corner of her eye she could see the color of his face seemed off, red and blotchy in places. Hell. He’d been crying.

Her stomach twisted. “Look… I’m sorry about the kid. I know that had to be hard.”

He was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was strained. “Grogu.”

“Sorry?”

“I found another Jedi a few weeks back. She said she couldn’t train him, but she was able to talk to him, mind to mind. He told her about his life before I found him. His name is Grogu.”

“Huh. Grogu.” She chuckled. “It’s cute. Suits him.”

A slight dip of his head, angled toward her. He was very still. She could see a muscle in his cheek twitching. 

Blast. She was no good at this crap. She fished around for something to say, something that could help. Maybe she could get him to talk; listening might be easier. “You’re sure you’re fine? Because you don’t look fine.” 

“I needed to help him find a Jedi,” Din said hoarsely. “I did what I was tasked to do. This is the W—“

But he cut himself off, turning his face away from her. His whole head moved to the side to shift his gaze, remnants of long years wearing a helmet. Every martial style had its tells, and she could see the differences between the ways Bo-Katan and Koska moved, and how the man beside her moved and battled. He _was_ different from them, in fundamental ways, but she wasn’t sure why they could remove their helmets and he couldn’t. Until he did.

Cara shook her head. _Think of something helpful. You can do this._ “He’s gonna be okay, you know,” she said suddenly. “I know who that was. We droppers heard rumors during the war that a powerful Jedi took out the Emperor on Endor. It has to be him. Skywalker. What other Jedi would fly in here in an X-Wing?”

“Good,” said Din. He still wouldn’t look at her. “So the Imps will never take him again.”

“I’d like to see them try. I never knew a Jedi could do _that_ ,” said Cara. She’d heard stories, of course, but stories were one thing. Proof was another. “I’m just glad he was on our side.”

Din turned back to facing forward, jaw tensed. He nodded, a tight gesture that somehow seemed too broad for him. Without the helmet, it was disconcerting to see emotions popping up on his face, vanishing as quickly as they came -- sorrow, pain, shame. It almost would have been funny if it wasn’t so hard to look at. _Live your life in a helmet, guess you never have to learn to control your face._

She took a guess at the emotion that flicked past, marked in the set of his eyes, the downturned lines at his mouth. “I’m sure you’ll see him again.”

“Maybe,” he said, and his gloved hands clenched on the table surface. He reached out and took a drink.

“I didn’t know you drank,” she said.

“I don’t.” His throat worked as he swallowed and drained the glass.

_Oh_. “Right.” 

She reached out and took the bottle from him, pulling back a long slug on it. It burned, clean and fierce, but it was strong stuff. No wonder it sold for the price it did; she was surprised he wasn’t slurring already. “Be careful with this stuff, then. It’s not for lightweights.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said, then lapsed again into quiet.

_Like talking to a durasteel wall_ , she thought. “Look, I wanted to make sure you were okay. That was rough up there. I just -- if you want to talk about it, or something, I can listen.” She leaned back in her chair, taking another drink of whiskey. It seared. “That’s all I’m trying to say.”

He turned toward her, canting his whole head instead of just moving his eyes. There it was again, the tell that he’d lived in his helmet for a long, long time. He took a deep breath, but he still couldn’t make eye contact with her.

“I know he has to do this. I can’t teach him, not the way he needs. I have -- I had to let him go,” he said. The words sounded well-practiced, like he’d said them many times before. 

“I know,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” She tried a small smile, though her eyes watered suddenly. “He -- Grogu -- he was crazy about you, you know?”

A slight shrug, shoulders scarcely moving.

“Well, he was. Looked up to you like anything. You guys have a bond.” 

“I did what I could for him,” said Din, closing his eyes. “I hope it’s enough.”

“It is,” said Cara fiercely. “You loved him, man. No kid could ask for more than that.”

He was silent, and when he opened his eyes again, she could see that they were damp.

She swallowed, took another drink, unsure of what to say. The quiet filled the space around them, a weighty, crushing thing.

Eventually she forced herself to speak again, casting around for something to say. “So…. They’re making arrangements upstairs. We’ll be rendezvousing with Fett soon, but you’re always welcome on Nevarro, too. Greef was heartbroken when I told him the Imps had the kid again, so I know he’d want to help you now. Have you thought about where you want to go?”

“I don’t know.” He turned away again, shoulders squaring beneath his armor.

“Well, if you don’t want to stay planetside for a while, it sounds like those other Mandalorians want your help. Honestly, if anyone could take back Mandalore, I’d put even credits on them. And on you. Dank farrik, you even have that sword now.”

“I don’t want it,” he bit out.

“Yeah, I heard. But you have it. May as well use it, right? Why give up a tactical advantage?” asked Cara. “Sounds like it belongs in the hands of a Mandalorian anyway.”

“All the more reason for me not to wield it,” said Din, and there was something sour, something wrong, in the way his face twisted.

She stared at him, raising her eyebrows. “What? _Wait._ Are you saying —“

“I broke the Creed. I showed my face,” he said, his voice cracking. “I had a choice, and this is what I chose. I am no longer worthy of my beskar.”

Cara tried wrapping her mind around it, remembered dragging him in from the battlefield, his blood hot and slick on her hand, the panic in his voice when she tried to remove his helmet to save his life. “You chose to show your face to your child who _needed_ you. You did the right thing for you both.” It didn’t make sense to her. “I thought your people wanted to help foundlings. Well, you helped him!”

“It is forbidden,” he forced out.

“You’re still a Mandalorian—”

Anger, grief, pain, rapid-fire flashes in his eyes and face, every muscle tensing for battle. “You have never sworn the Creed. You know _nothing_ about it!” 

She bristled, fighting the urge to say something harsh, or worse, throw a punch at him to knock the sense back into him. Beside her he was breathing harder, chest visibly rising and falling rapidly. She bit her lip. 

“Okay, okay, maybe I don’t know what it’s like to be a Mandalorian,” Cara admitted sharply, lifting her hands to calm him. “But I do know what it’s like to turn away from something you spent your whole life believing. Alderaan had no army, remember?”

He breathed a little slower. The flush of red in his face receded. “You never told me why you became a soldier. I assumed, after what happened --”

Her mouth twisted. “Close, but not exactly. I started seeing what my people couldn’t, _before_ it happened. The Empire was rising and people were dying. Diplomacy stopped working a long time ago. When I told my family I had to fight, even if that meant killing, they turned their backs on me.”

“They were blind,” said Din. “The Imps weren’t going to stop expanding with peaceful protest.”

“Maybe,” she said. This was the hard part. The part that had taken her years to understand, that she was still trying to figure out. “I think now… we wanted the same thing. We just saw different paths to peace. They thought pacifism was the way. I saw the Empire killing people, terrorizing them, and that wasn’t peace. I had to fight for peace to even begin to exist.” She wiped her cheek, fingertips brushing over the tattooed Tear. “So I was offworld, trying to become a new recruit, when the Empire showed Alderaan what they thought about peaceful resistance.”

“I’m sorry.”

She gave him a tight, painful smile. “But the thing is, Mando, I’m still Alderaanian. No one can take that away from me but me. Not the Empire, not my family, not the royal house of Alderaan. Even if my family didn’t understand why I did what I did, _I_ knew I was fighting to bring peace. That’s what makes me Alderaanian.” _No matter what._

He gazed at the beskar helmet, shining beneath the overhead lights. Its black visor was an empty void, disconnected from its bearer.

She let out a bark of a laugh, blinking away tears. “I don’t know, man. It’s your life. Your Way. But if your Way won’t let you show your face to your own kid when he needs you, maybe some of those rules should change. If you still feel like a Mandalorian, I think _that’s_ what makes you one, and not what anybody else says.”

He closed his eyes, hanging his head slightly. He shifted in his seat with a small _clink_ , one armored arm now resting against his helmet. “I don’t know what I am now.”

Cara took another drink from the bottle, finishing the last of the whiskey. “We’ve got two women up there who’d kill you in a heartbeat if you said they weren’t Mandalorian, and they show their faces clear as day.” She shrugged. “Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to talk to them about some of this stuff. You could put it together with the old Way and make something new, something that feels right. But for what it’s worth, Mando… you’ll always be a Mandalorian in my eyes.” She clapped a hand over his shoulder, the beskar cool beneath her palm.

“It’s not --” He struggled, mouth thinning, before he let out a long breath. “That’s very kind,” he said slowly. He turned his head to look at her at last, searching her face. He looked strangely vulnerable like this, far more so than he had dying in the dust of Nevarro. 

She nodded, attempting to smile, her mouth not quite getting there. “Well, it’s true.” 

His face shifted into uncertainty. “Perhaps the Way of the Mandalore is not… the only way to be a Mandalorian.” He looked down at his helmet and swallowed. “I’ll speak with the others, at least.”

“It’ll take _time_ ,” Cara said softly. “You don’t have to figure it out right away. Just… maybe hang on to your armor for a while, that’s all.”

He was quiet. “Thank you. Truly.”

“Sure,” Cara said, nudging him with her shoulder and giving him a quick smile. “Any time. After all, what are friends for?” She leaned over the counter, pulling down another bottle of Corellian whiskey and grabbing an empty glass. “What do you say to a toast?”

A dry chuckle. “Sure. You’ll have to tell me if I’m doing it right. I’ve never done this before.”

“I think you’ll get the idea.” She poured them each a glass, and raised hers high until it caught the light. “To Grogu.”

The edges of his mouth turned up, just slightly. Just enough. He raised his glass to clink to hers, his brown eyes bright, his voice warm. “To Grogu.” 

The whiskey burned in her throat, clean and pure. _To finding the Way._

**Author's Note:**

> I suspect that Din didn't have a crisis of faith about what happened in Chapter 15 because he could still tell himself he was serving the Creed by working towards the foundling's safety, which necessitated showing his face. It was difficult for him, but it was a case of one part of the Creed superseding the other. However, in Chapter 16 Grogu was assuredly safe, and the only reason to take his helmet off was because he and Grogu truly wanted to see each other. A beautiful act, but one with no allowance in the Creed. I hope that we'll see some of that struggle in season 3, but that in time he comes to a place where he decides he's a) still Mandalorian, but b) no longer needs to hide his face if he chooses not to. I can see it being very touch and go for a while though, and I hope his time with other Mandalorians becomes a positive thing and isn't solely about who gets the Darksaber.
> 
> Cara's past has been pretty vague on the show aside from Alderaanian soldier, and I like the idea that she found a different application of her people's pacifist beliefs to be necessary even before she had a specific cause for vengeance. It may not be revealed that way in canon, but hell, it's fanfiction, I'll do as I please. I've been wanting to try a bit from her perspective for a while, and it was tricky but interesting going.


End file.
